"An example of masterful storytelling that fascinated me growing up. I identified with Kim, the orphaned son of an Irish soldier, because we were both children of the army; my father was an army doctor who had served under Lord Mountbatten. On rereading, the setting of the Afghan Wars in the late Victorian era has chilling implications for today. The book is also a reminder that Kipling’s colonialist perspective didn’t blind him to the teeming human drama of India."

"Our parents never explain the war. We are asked without words to pay lip service to their sacrifice. Army of Shadows puts a face on the story. Never mind the long tracking shots; Melville takes you there."

"This is McCullers’s most vicious and finest work, though I love all her work. The narrative stars a closeted army captain on a Southern military base, and a surrounding cast of depressed, outrageous, flamboyant, and cruel characters, or rather, people."